


nothing's gonna change my world

by stitchingatthecircuitboard



Series: across the universe [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, i am so incredibly sad about jason todd so i guess this is what happened, infinite universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:46:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchingatthecircuitboard/pseuds/stitchingatthecircuitboard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In other universes, Jason has no mother, or two, or one. The Bat finds him, or doesn’t; catches him, or doesn’t; believes in him, or doesn’t.</p><p>In no universe was Jason Todd meant to die.</p><p>[warnings: canonical character death; non-graphic violence (including gun violence); non-graphic torture; non-graphic murder; implied/non-graphic child abuse/pedophilia; non-graphic mention of rape/implied rape]</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing's gonna change my world

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thanks to narfi for suggesting a bunch of beautiful arabic epithets jason might be given in one of these universes and helping me pick one out; and to sam, for saying "so let's talk about that 2k of jason fic you've got" and then telling me it did not suck.
> 
> title from the beatles, "across the universe"

In another universe, Jason Todd does not meet the Batman. 

In this one, he lies gasping, broken in ways he never knew he could be broken, in ways that are both better and worse than he’s felt before. In this one, his mother is crying in the corner; in this one, he cannot stand tall enough, he cannot summon strength to shattered limbs.

In this universe, the bomb ticks down and he doesn’t watch it, thinking _he’ll get here in time;_ thinking _i can open the fucking door;_ thinking _i can still save her;_ knowing that he tried, he tried, he fucking tried, and wasn’t ever good enough.

In this universe, the bomb breaks the sky, and it’s a relief. 

 

In another universe, Bruce fixes him with that grim, unblinking stare that he’s probably fucking trademarked, and says, “Did he fall?”

Felipe lies twisted on the cement, blood pooling from split skin.

Bruce thinks this is a test _— are you a murderer; are you better than you were born —_ but Jason, Jason knows: it’s as much a test of Bruce as it is himself.

_are you sick enough to let a monster like that escape. are you more willing to punish the death of a murderer and rapist than the death of the woman he murdered and raped._

_if that’s the case — where does that leave me?_

In another universe, Jason says _yes, he fell;_ in another universe, Bruce looks for three long minutes at the body, and touches Jason’s shoulder with unprecedented gentleness, and holds him hours later in the Batcave, when the rage and pain and grief breaks out anew, and says fiercely _don’t you dare apologize, son_ when Jason chokes out an _i’m sorry._

In this universe, Jason Todd tilts up his chin, and says, “No.” Bruce looks down at the street, at the blood seeping down through Gotham’s hide, and the metal of the fire escape twists under his strong hands.

In this universe, Jason Todd is back at the moldy room on Crime Alley by daybreak; in this universe, Jason Todd still dies at the Joker’s hand, but the Joker dies with him.

In every universe in which Jason Todd kills Felipe, Bruce thinks him a murderer.

 

In another universe, Jason shouts _try and catch me, you big boob,_ and the Batman does.

In this one, he doesn’t.

Jason dies beneath the Joker’s boot anyways. In this universe, he’s buried unmarked and unmourned like so many others, and he never comes back.

 

In another universe, Jason Todd is not an orphan. His mother is not an addict. There is no string of abusive boyfriends, and he is never raped. He never spits at the Batman _i just boost what it takes to survive,_ but he still boosts tires sometimes, because Mom’s jobs don’t pay well, and she’s sick a lot, and Gotham winters are cold like iron teeth at your bones.

“I ain’t no crook,” Jason Todd spits, “I just boost what it takes to survive.”

Detective Gordon is unimpressed, but he sighs, takes off his glasses, pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Look, Jason,” he says, and Jason bristles. “I — God, how does a kid your age even learn to steal tires from a car —”

“Please, Dad,” says the girl in the corner, not looking up from her book. “You live with _me._ You should be used to precocious pre-teens.”

Jason snorts against his better judgment, and the girl looks up, smiles at him. Her bright red hair shines softly in the light. 

Detective Gordon sighs again. “I need coffee,” he says, resigned.

The girl takes his seat as soon as he’s left. “How _did_ you learn to boost tires?” she asks curiously. “That’s not the kind of thing they make handbooks for.”

Jason grins. “Trade secret, ‘m afraid.”

The girl tilts her head speculatively. “Hey,” she says suddenly, “I’ll get Dad to let you off if you teach me, sometime.” She looks at him, hopeful.

“Why d’you wanna learn to steal tires?”

She shrugs. “Could be useful.”

He can’t argue with that.

“Sure,” Jason says, and reaches across the table to shake her offered hand. “I’m Jason.”

She grins, keen and bright as the green of her eyes. “I’m Barbara, but my friends call me Babs,” she says. “It’s good to meet you, Jason.”

Babs not only talks her father into letting Jason off with a warning, but gets him to give Jason a ride home, and a job attempting to impose order on the chaos of Gordon’s back yard. Gordon sighs a third time, says, “You’re a good kid, Barbara,” and doesn’t look as Babs grabs Jason’s hand on the way to the car. She shares some homemade cookies with him, offers to teach him how they’re made after gardening this weekend, asks if he’s ever seen Batman and Robin over in Crime Alley. _yes,_ Jason whispers, and _i can show you how to hotwire a car,_ and her eyes light up.

There is no universe in which Babs Gordon and Jason Todd are not best friends.

 

In one universe, Jason has a mother. In this one, she is not an addict; in this one, she is the only one who can say she is his mother. In this universe, with hard words and gentle hands, she brings Jason with her when she volunteers at women’s shelters, to her shifts at Leslie Thompkins’ clinic; she takes him to the library and asks the red-haired girl shelving books for stories with strong women for her son. 

“I may be a shit mom,” she tells him darkly, waiting for the subway home. “But I’ll make damn sure that you won’t be anything like your father.”

Jason pauses, lets the book pinch his fingers to keep his place. “You’re not a shit mom,” he says, leaning into her side.

She sighs, threads her fingers through his hair. “You’re a good kid,” she mutters. “Just need to make sure that you stay that way.”

They stand quietly.

“Barbara — the girl at the library,” Jason’s mom says. “She tutors, math, computer science. Something to think about, huh?”

 

In other universes, Jason has no mother, or two, or one. He learns how to boost tires and. other things. _what it takes to survive._ The Bat finds him, or doesn’t; catches him, or doesn’t; believes in him, or doesn’t. He meets Babs at her father’s precinct, at the library, at the high school they both attend; he doesn’t like her effortlessly charming boyfriend, or doesn’t mind him, or never meets him, or fights crime with him at night, or sprawls next to Babs when she whispers, “What if — when I tell him I’m bi.”

He passes her another handful of chocolate. “Then fuck him,” he says, “s’not worth you,” and Babs wipes her eyes on the blanket.

In no universe does Dick Grayson betray her because she’s bisexual.

 

In every universe, Babs sews herself a cowl. In this one, Jason watches.

“Want to spar, later?” Babs asks.

He shrugs. She looks over, frowning.

“I don’t,” he says slowly, and picks at the hole in his jeans, pastel swatches of plaid laid out beside him. “I don’t believe in the Bat.”

“C’mon, Jay.” Babs stops the sewing machine, looks at him seriously. “You saw them, you —”

“It’s not that,” Jason says, and his tongue feels thick and inarticulate in his mouth. “It’s. I don’t believe in the work they do. The vigilantism. I think it hurts more than it helps.”

“But —” Babs says, and stops. Her brows crease in neat, straight lines, echoing the clean folds of her collar and cuffs peaking from her sweater. “Oh,” she says softly, and asks if she can come when he volunteers tomorrow.

Babs is the smartest person he knows. This is true in every universe.

In this one, she only ever sews the cowl.

 

In one universe, a lean, thin boy with blue eyes and dark hair catches Jason’s eye and smiles during period three math. It’s an advanced class, which is mostly Babs’ doing; and the boy is a year? two years? his junior.

Jason smirks back, because he’s kind of an asshole in every universe, and expects the hand at his shoulder after class.

“I hear you like chili dogs,” the boy says. “I’m Tim.”

“Didn’t know you knew Babs,” Jason says; who else would’ve described him like that. “I’m Jason.”

“I know,” Tim says, with a sharp, sly smile.

In other universes, Jason meets Tim with hate in his heart and blood on his hands; in others, he tries to kill him; in others, they fight for years and never stop.

In this one, they don’t start. In this one, Jason lets Tim crowd him against the library stacks, and kisses him back.

 

In every universe, Babs Gordon opens the door and feels time slow as if in sympathy — give her another second, a day, an hour to feel her legs, to know the easy grace of moving under her own power, _please no —_

In every universe, the Joker leaves her stripped and broken and bleeding out on her living room floor; in every universe, she wakes up frightened and in pain in a hospital. 

In this one, Jason Todd scrubs his hand over his eyes and says, gently, “Hey, Babs.”

“Jason,” she whispers, “—did he take my father?”

He takes her hand, forces himself to nod.

She’s trying so hard not to cry. “He — he was doing it to get at _him,”_ she chokes out, “it wasn’t even my _father,_ it wasn’t even me — it was him.”

Jason hands her a tissue, brushes a lock of hair from her eyes. 

“It’ll be okay, Babs,” he whispers.

Babs tilts her head towards him, wipes her eyes, squints suspiciously. “You’re a rotten liar, Jay.” 

“One of my best qualities,” he says, and squeezes her hand as she laughs painfully. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“Where are you —”

“Gonna get the nurse.”

In this universe, Babs chooses to believe him; in another, she doesn’t, and says, “Love you, Jay,” to catch his answering smile; in a third, she snarls, “Jason Peter Todd, what the _hell_ do you think you’re doing —”

In this universe, the Batman arrives to the Joker’s lair as Gordon crawls out, a shrieking laugh and the shot of a gun, and another, and another and another and another echoing from deep within the ride.

In another universe, Jason Todd survives.

 

In another universe, there is no mother, just a miscalculation of global proportions gone awry. There is a warehouse. There is a bomb. There is his blood scraped across the floor. Jason Todd watches the seconds wind down and knows that no one is coming to save him. He is not good enough to be saved. He has never been good enough to be saved, not in this universe or any other. 

_— eight, seven, six, five, four, three —_

Jason closes his eyes. 

_— two, one —_

 

Dying is not like falling asleep, and resurrection, whatever one might think, is worse. In this universe, Jason learns both truths as cruelly as the world can teach them. 

In this universe, a boy tears his way through reality. In this universe, Jason Todd was not meant to die. 

 

In no universe was Jason Todd meant to die. 

 

In one universe, Talia al Ghul protects him from her father; trains him, sponsors him, fuels the vengeful rage Lazarus and injustice left in him. In others, she never meets him, or meets him too late for either of them, or recruits him away from Bruce, promising better training, no judgment, devotion to an ideal which can actually make a difference in the world. In this one, she finds him at eight years old, huddled at a train station in Gotham City, dirty and exhausted and bearing terrible bruises.

In this universe, she kneels carefully in front of him, keeps her distance, telegraphs her movements. She’s seen marks like those on her own skin.

“Hello, child,” she says, her voice as gentle as she knows how to make it. “Are you alone?”

Jason looks at her warily, sets his jaw, winces at the soreness. 

Talia turns to her guard. “Get me some ice,” she orders.

In this universe, Jason follows her distrustfully, ice held gingerly to his face. She takes him to a doctor, a therapist, tells him that what happened was not his fault, and does not promise she can prevent it from happening again.

“In things like this,” she says, and stops. Her hands tighten, white-knuckled, around the hanbō staff she’s showing him. Jason watches her silently, his own hanbō held firmly, and waits.

“It is best if we are our own protection,” Talia says, finally, catching his eyes and holding them.

Jason nods, and raises his staff to readiness.

In this universe, he never meets Tim Drake, never fits his hands around the edges of Tim’s hook-nosed cowl and kisses him. In this universe, Oracle is still a small woman in a wheelchair with a sharp wit and an audible sigh whenever he shows up, offering information for trade. 

“Put the kettle on, Musaafer,” she says, hair glowing green under her monitors, “and make me a cup, as strong as possible, I might have something for you.”

 

In another universe, Talia al Ghul finds him lost in Asia, searching for the woman who might be his mother, and she stops him and invites him to dinner because any protégé of the Bat's naturally inspires curiosity, and so does one who has cast off the cape and is avoiding some of Bruce's less explicit lessons. 

"Shiva is not your mother," Talia tells him, more gently than he expects. 

Jason picks at his food. "I know," he says quietly. 

Talia tilts her head curiously. “Then why look?” 

Jason stills, lays his utensils down carefully. “I wasn’t —” he says, and swallows. “I’m. I don’t want to work for him, anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Jason says, fierce and angry and _why won’t anyone listen,_ “he’s not a good person.”

Across the table, Talia stills.

“What do you mean by that,” she asks, still gentle.

“He’s not fixing the fucking city,” Jason says, “he’s making it worse.”

“Gotham’s always been a city of nightmares,” Talia murmurs, “of monsters.”

“Well then,” Jason says bitterly, “he’s its king.” He looks up, catching Talia’s dark eyes. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”

Talia smiles.

In this universe, Jason accepts her offer of training. “I’m not a monster,” he says, a warning.

“All men are,” she answers; “don’t take it personally, _meskeen.”_

He never does.

 

In another universe, there is a bomb beneath a car in the alley that births monsters, and the trigger is in his hand.

In this universe, he presses the button.

 

In many universes, he dies in the Batman’s custody: the Joker catches him, Robin’s R shining bright on his breast, his mother’s careful stitches patching his jacket, knuckles bruised trying to save someone else in that monster’s way. The Joker cackles even as Jason’s blood speckles his teeth and his tie; throws him into a vat of chemicals with a laugh that’s worse for its sanity; locks him in a warehouse, _tell the big man i said hello,_ watches the fires with a glint in his eye and the crowbar still clutched in his hand.

In some of these universes, Jason comes back. 

In fewer, he blames Bruce.

In two, he finds the moldy old room in Crime Alley, sets a bomb of his own, eight seconds to boom, and waits for his inevitable defeat. In one, Jason Todd dies, again. In this one, he does not come back.

 

In one universe, Jason Todd never met the Batman. His mother threaded her fingers through his hair, and never said she loved him except for the thousand ways she did. Babs Gordon looked over his math test and said, “Here, this is where you went wrong,” and shoved her lunch at him without pausing for breath. Robin was a beautiful boy with dark hair and blue eyes and a smile so sharp Jason thought it would cut him the first time they kissed. 

This is not the worst universe. It is not the best one, either.

 

In every universe, Jason is born from sacrifice. In every universe, he dies from it as well.


End file.
